This invention relates generally to the field of battery saving in a portable communication device and more particularly to enabling and disabling normal pager receiver operation based upon a time of day, day of week, and/or date parameters.
With the advent of reduced current drain circuitry, improved battery saving operations, and higher capacity primary batteries, the battery life of a pager has been extended to several months. This longer life has insensitized some users to the limited battery life of their pager. Consequently, users neglect to regularly turn off their pagers after work or when they are not available for paging, such as when they are out of range of the transmitter. Even with the various technical improvements, such neglect substantially reduces the life of the battery.
Similarly, pager users who remember to switch their pagers off at the end of a working day occasionally forget to switch their pagers back on at the beginning of the next working day. During the working day, the pager user could be wearing their pager and expecting to receive pages when the pager is actually switched off. This occasionally results in missed pages.
Because many pager users are only available for paging at regular times, a time of day clock can be used to extend the life of the battery by inhibiting receiver operations at the regular times when the user knows that he will not be receiving pages. Additionally, a source of missed pages can be eliminated by switching a pager on at the regular times when the user expects to receive pages. Such a device would automatically turn off and on the pager to overcome the user neglect and occasional missed pages.
Often times, a single address function will be assigned to several pager users. When one group of pager users is on duty, they are to respond to the messages. The off duty group will also receive the message if their pagers are left turned on. Often times, it is undesirable for the off duty group to be receiving messages. Prior art descriptions of battery saver suggest no solution to the inhibition of page reception by off duty users.